It’s an open debate: Who invented the modern toilet? Apocrypha holds that it was Thomas Crapper, a nineteenth-century English plumber, but the real story actually begins much earlier. In the West, while his technology was never commercialized, credit is now given to Sir John Harington, who invented a water closet in 1596 for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I. In the East, innovation stretches back much further. Archaeologists recently unearthed a Han dynasty latrine dating to 206 BC. Complete with a running water supply, stone bowl, and an armrest, this 2,400-year-old Chinese technology looks downright modern. Source: Abundance, future is better than you think